


Soldier Keep On Marching On, Even After All is Gone

by ThePoetess



Category: Dunkirk - Fandom, atonement
Genre: Depression, Friendship, Gibson lives, Loss, Memory Alteration, Multi, Sadness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePoetess/pseuds/ThePoetess
Summary: A Dunkirk/Atonement story
Relationships: Alex and Tommy (Friendship), Gibson and Alex (Frendemies), Gibson and Tommy (friendship), Tommy Rice/Briony Tallis
Kudos: 3





	Soldier Keep On Marching On, Even After All is Gone

From this new and intimate perspective, he learned a simple, obvious thing he had always known, and everyone knew: that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended.

All he wanted was to get off this beach alive, all he wanted was to get back to his family who needed him, if they still were alive. They were allies, but, they couldn't be farther apart, worlds away, skepticism and anger lay in his unwanted comrade's eyes and for Gibson, this was a warning sign, they'd chosen the same side in the war, but, they weren't friends. All he wanted was to get home. Even after everything was gone, there'd still be scars, but, he longed for them, because it would mean he'd lived a long life and lived to tell about it...

But, he hadn't, he hadn't and it killed Tommy Rice, just called Tommy by friends, it killed him to think that his friend had been turned upon and - he woke up screaming in the cold and hard hospital bed and looked around frantically, blue tinged windows making him feel he was drowning.  
Drowning, that's how Gibson had died... and Tommy had left him. Left him, because Alex had forced him to, no no no, he could have swum back - he could have gone back for him, but, he didn't, he did not go back for him. 

The side of the bed clanged angrily as Tommy punched his pillow and every inch of himself in anger and revulsion, he could have helped him! Survivors guilt weighed heavy on Tommy and everything seemed to lead back to that snap decision, that one quick moment when he'd left Gibson to die, he'd thought he had been able to swim out, not knowing something had caught him, he couldn't bring himself to admit that- no. 

He couldn't breathe and the night shivers that racked his skinny frame were always the same, predictable in their always being there. Hiding his face in hands and against the cold bed frame, he broke and finally allowed himself the chance to weep and all shadows of memory and the skeletons from his past crowded round as he broke

Gibson's ghost watched him from the shadows, coming forward from them, he wrapped Tommy in a blanket, unspeaking as he had always been. 


End file.
